US warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah yesterday, a day after the city's leaders suspended peace talks and rejected the Iraqi government's demands to turn over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Fallujah clerics insisted al-Zarqawi was not in the city and called for civil disobedience across Iraq if the Americans try to overrun the insurgent bastion. If civil disobedience won't stop the attack, clerics said they would proclaim a holy war against multinational forces "as well as those collaborating with them."
Al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed responsibility for Thursday's twin bombings inside Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone -- home to US officials and the Iraqi leadership -- which killed six people, including three American civilians. A fourth American was missing and presumed dead.
Two Iraqis were killed, at least one of them a suicide bomber. The identity of the other wasn't known. The group's claim, which could not be verified, was posted on a Web site known for its Islamic contents.
Thursday's bold, unprecedented attack, which witnesses and a senior Iraqi official said was carried out by suicide bombers, dramatized the militants' ability to penetrate the heart of the US-Iraqi leadership even as authorities step up military operations to suppress Sunni Muslim insurgents in other parts of the country.
Jets and artillery hammered Fallujah through the night in an apparent effort to quash terrorists suspected of planning attacks timed with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began yesterday.
Witnesses said that US troops have detained Khaled al-Jumeili, a cleric who led the city's delegates in peace negotiations with the government. They said he was arrested as he left a mosque after the Friday prayers in a village about 15km south of Fallujah.
Another man, Ahmed al-Janabi, also was arrested but was freed soon afterwards.
Iraqi leaders have been in negotiations to restore government control to Fallujah, which fell under the domination of clerics and their armed mujahedeen followers after the end of the three-week Marine siege last April.
Allawi warned Wednesday that Fallujah must surrender al-Zarqawi and other foreign fighters or face military action. Talks broke down Thursday when city representatives rejected the "impossible condition."
The US believes al-Zarqawi and his terrorist group are headquartered in Fallujah. Last year, the Ramadan period saw a surge in violence.
During Friday sermons in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, preachers read a statement from Fallujah clerics declaring that al-Zarqawi's presence "is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie."
"Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilians houses and killing innocent civilians," the statement said.
Also see story:
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS